Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Montessori Open House and Art Show

Montessori had an open house and art show for students' parents. It's a nice time to get together with other parents and the teachers. Here he is with his two teachers. They are both so sweet and I know he will miss them next year when he's in Kindergarten.

Of course, Rachel always gets lots of attention from the teachers too. They just love to hold her.

We got to see some of the neat art work that Nicholas has made including a mobil made out of recycled materials, a layered sand bottle, a giant butterfly, and more. It was also fun for Nicholas to go into his classroom and show us around and show off his favorite activities.

Here he is showing us the Montessori Numerical Rods. These rods give a hands-on interactive tool for learning basic counting, learning about relationships of numbers to each other, i.e. 3 is more than 2, as well as learning about addition and subtraction. And it is self-correcting so a child can realize a mistake without the assistance of the teacher. Nicholas really impresses me with his math skills so I wasn't surprised that he went to this activity first.

Nicholas also showed us how to use the geo boards. These boards each have different patterns of upright pegs and the child uses rubber bands wrapped around the pegs in various configurations to make different geometric shapes. Here he is also making a drawing of his geometric shapes.

Next Nicholas showed us his metal inset drawing. Metal Insets were designed by Maria Montessori to teach handwriting. They are metal stencils that come in ten basic shapes. The thick, sturdy metal frame teaches the child control of his pencil as it acts as a guide. The child draws around the inside of the frame – counterclockwise, the same direction most round letters are formed. Then he places the shape piece on the paper and traces around the outside of it. Next he uses free hand to draw the lines across the shape to mimic the other strokes in letter formation. Nicholas has gotten so much better with this project in the last year.

Here Nicholas is showing us the Montessori Touch Board. The board consists of 10 circles each lined with a different texture. The 10 red pegs have matching textures on their underside. The child feels the texture on a red peg without looking at it and then tries to match the feel of the texture on the peg to the textures on the board. I really had fun with this one!

I just love the Montessori Method. It is full of hands-on, interactive works that are fun and interesting while they teach and guide.